Implications for Community
As I was driving home from work this morning, I heard a news article on NPR about a small town in Louisiana that is having a fish fry today to celebrate the arrival of phone service in their town. January. 2005. Phone service for the first time.
That made me wonder. What will happen to this town? They obviously have a strong sense of community -- or why the fish fry? What will getting phone service do? Will they fragment, ignoring one another to talk with distant relatives formerly rarely heard from? Have they stepped up on to the ladder that leads to exurbia?
I remember when I was young, my maternal grandmother still had a party line. Five houses in their neighborhood shared one phone number. I don't remember how it worked for sure, but that was a community.
I wonder what it would be like to live in a town with no phones. To have to step outside and walk to Tom's place to ask him about my car or have someone just walk up and grab a seat on the porch for a chat. What would I suddenly notice that I've been missing? Would I be any more present to my friends and my life than I am now? Would my handwriting improve from wrtiting all the letters to people out of town? My budget for stamps would sure go up.
A huge chunk of me longs for that kind of simplicity. Unfortunately, that chunk is wrapped in a titanic "what-if" struggle with the other piece of me that already feels too disconnected and lonely. Maybe that will never be resolved until I can acheive some sense of community in myself.
That made me wonder. What will happen to this town? They obviously have a strong sense of community -- or why the fish fry? What will getting phone service do? Will they fragment, ignoring one another to talk with distant relatives formerly rarely heard from? Have they stepped up on to the ladder that leads to exurbia?
I remember when I was young, my maternal grandmother still had a party line. Five houses in their neighborhood shared one phone number. I don't remember how it worked for sure, but that was a community.
I wonder what it would be like to live in a town with no phones. To have to step outside and walk to Tom's place to ask him about my car or have someone just walk up and grab a seat on the porch for a chat. What would I suddenly notice that I've been missing? Would I be any more present to my friends and my life than I am now? Would my handwriting improve from wrtiting all the letters to people out of town? My budget for stamps would sure go up.
A huge chunk of me longs for that kind of simplicity. Unfortunately, that chunk is wrapped in a titanic "what-if" struggle with the other piece of me that already feels too disconnected and lonely. Maybe that will never be resolved until I can acheive some sense of community in myself.
posted by jeffmacsimus @ 9:01 AM
2 Comments:
At 10:04 AM,
Matt Patrick said…
Your blog peaked my interest, so I did a little research. It turns out the small town of Mink, Louisiana has a total of 15 homes. They had to run 30 miles of phone cable through thick forest to reach them at a cost of $700,000 which equals out to be about $47,000 per phone (payed for by Louisiana state taxpayers).
My hunch is that those 15 homes, in a densely wooded area, 30 miles from nowhere, will remain a strong community. They may, however, just stay in their homes and speak to each other on the phone instead of face to face! weird.
Todd Hunter came to speak to Open Door and his definition of true community is "Routine, unplanned contact." I'm guessing the folks in Mink won't be able to escape this. It sounds to me like they are a town full of routine and unplanned contact. Phones or no phones.
If that is truly the case, then it seems we as a church of "planned" community need to re-define community as a whole, or simply call it something else.
for the full story, you can visit...
http://www.theadvocate.com/stories/012805/new_phone001.shtml
At 5:04 PM,
gloria said…
Deep, frustrated wondering. What really is community? Matt's comment has me wanting to spit tacks and I felt the same way when I heard Todd Hunter's talk. I, probably rather selfishly, am looking for community with like-minded others for the purpose of keeping our hearts soft and our heads on in this battle worn place. In my everyday, walk-around life I feel rather isolated. Sometimes I feel like I live in a brown paper sack. I want to punch out, it would be so easy, but stupidly I don't know how. I watch pioneer reality documentaries on PBS and find, like you, I am longing for simplicity and community. Maybe all I long for is available to me and I must simply walk across the lawn. I don't know. But I think it's also possible that real community can happen here, in blog land. Maybe I'm deluded.
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